


In Good Hands

by BillyMitchell



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: M/M, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:00:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28017360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BillyMitchell/pseuds/BillyMitchell
Summary: After Caroline's death, Gordon Cole and Agent Cooper set up an arrangement to help Cooper deal with his guilt. When Cooper is taken over by Bob, will this arrangement save the day? (Note: This fanfiction ignores Season Three.)
Relationships: Dale Cooper/Gordon Cole
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

It was eight o’clock on a Tuesday evening. Thunder crashed and lightning sparked as someone started to pound on Gordon Cole’s front door. This wasn’t necessarily an aggressive display; Gordon, an FBI Regional Bureau Chief, had lost his hearing back in 1969, most of it anyway. Pounding, to him, was reduced to a gentle knocking, and gentle knocking was undetectable.

As he set down his wine glass and rushed to answer the door, he wondered who might want to see him at this hour.

On the porch, shivering and soaked to the bone from the downpour, stood Special Agent Dale Cooper.

“COOP,” Gordon exclaimed, “YOU’VE BROUGHT THE WHOLE STORM ON MY PORCH WITH YOU.”

“I’m sorry,” Agent Cooper said, “I’ll only come in if you’re certain the dripping won’t trouble you.”

“YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT CAROLINE AGAIN?” Gordon asked as he put his hand on Agent Cooper’s shoulder and ushered him through the door.

“I’m afraid so.” Though Agent Cooper sounded quiet, Gordon could tell he was enunciating as loudly and clearly as he could. “Gordon, I often wonder if a moment will go by that I don’t think about her, if a moment will go by that I don’t feel utterly horrible about letting her… die in my care. Today, that peace feels like an impossible dream.”

“THE TIME WILL COME, COOP,” Gordon said, “THE TIME WILL COME. NOW DON’T MOVE AN INCH OUT OF MY ENTRYWAY UNTIL YOU TAKE THOSE CLOTHES OFF.”

For once, Cooper, who remained composed even in the face of intense danger or sadness, looked taken aback. “I’m sorry?”

“I WON’T HAVE YOU DRIPPING THAT STORM ALL OVER MY FLOORS, AND AS I IMAGINE YOU’RE GOING TO WANT YOUR USUAL TREATMENT, I WON’T HAVE YOU GETTING MY LAP ALL WET EITHER.”

“Of course,” Cooper said. “Thank you, Gordon, for what you’ve done for me these past few months. I must say, it’s helped me immensely—”

“ANYTHING TO ASSUAGE THAT GUILT OF YOURS. I’M NOT LOSING MY BEST AGENT TO HIMSELF.”

Cooper opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but didn’t, instead just slipped off his button-up shirt. His shoes, his pants, his boxers, and then his socks came next. His face was pink. This was his first time being naked for one of the many punishment sessions he’d asked Gordon for since Caroline had died.

Gordon walked into the living room, and Cooper, newly dry except for his hair, followed.

“Ah, Gordon?”

“COOPER?”

“I only want it done… I only want it done like this when I’m feeling very badly.”

“ARE YOU FEELING VERY BADLY TODAY?”

“Today? Yes. I was even considering asking for it this way, before you insisted.”

“COME HERE, THEN. ONTO THE COUCH.”

Cooper complied, keeping his hands cupped at his pelvis until he was safely settled over Gordon’s lap.

“YOU KNOW,” Gordon said, “EITHER ALBERT OR AGENT BRYSON WOULD HAVE A BETTER-SUITED TEMPERAMENT FOR THIS. WHY YOU DIDN’T APPROACH ONE OF THEM INSTEAD IS BEYOND ME.”

Cooper looked back and smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “They aren’t my superiors. You are, so my failure on an assignment let you down the most.”

With that, he turned back around, and there was a beat of silence. Gordon raised his hand in the air, then hesitated. There was a pinkish, hand-shaped mark just above the back of Cooper’s thigh. It must be a remnant of the last time Cooper had come to his house, late the previous week. Gordon shuddered. He’d have to be more careful. Cooper needed something to help with his guilt, and Gordon was glad to lend a helping hand. What Cooper didn’t need was to be brutalized. It was a fine line, and a heavy responsibility.

“You’re sure I’m not bothering you?” Cooper asked, turning back around. “I can—”

“NOW, YOU BE QUIET AND TURN BACK AROUND. I WANT YOU FEELING BETTER, AND IF THIS IS WHAT’S GOING TO MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER I AM ABSOLUTELY PLEASED TO DO IT. I SAID TURN AROUND!”

 _Whap. Whap. Whap._ The first few slaps landed, and Gordon’s hand stung. The damage of their sessions wasn’t exclusively felt on Cooper’s end.

“I’M.” _Whap._ “GOING TO.” _Whap._ “DO THIS AS LONG AS IT TAKES TO SAVE YOU.” _Whap. Whap. Whap._ “FROM THAT THING LIVING IN YOUR HEART TORTURING YOU.”

Coop’s legs were trembling violently, and small whimpers escaped his lips. Gordon could feel them more than he could hear them. Cooper never cried during the punishment sessions, not fully. Gordon often wondered if that was part of the problem, a man desperate to experience grief fully and just missing the mark.

 _Whap._ “NOW WHAT.” _Whap._ “HAVE I.” _Whap._ “TOLD YOU.” _Whap._ “EVERY TIME YOU’VE FOUND YOURSELF IN THIS POSITION?” _Whap, whap, whap._

“Ow,” Cooper gasped. Gordon could tell he was speaking through tears he wouldn’t let fall as he continued, “Good agents don’t fall down in the face of failure. They better themselves, forgive themselves, and move on.”

“YOU CAN REPEAT IT, BUT ARE YOU GOING TO LEARN IT?” _Whap._ “NOW GET UP.”

Cooper stood, wincing and rubbing his backside with his right hand as he did so. With his left, he covered his pelvis again. As Gordon predicted, his eyes shone only so slightly.

“YOU CAN LIE DOWN IF YOU LIKE. I STILL HAVE SOME CLEANING UP TO DO IN THE KITCHEN. USE THAT BLANKET RIGHT THERE IF YOU’RE COLD.”

Cooper lay facedown on the couch, face still flushed, but didn’t pull the blanket over himself. Gordon wondered if the humiliation was meant to be a punishment of its own.

On his way to the kitchen, Gordon found himself glancing down at Cooper. The pink mark of last week was no longer visible under the new latticework.

“CAN I GET YOU AN ICE PACK?” Gordon asked, but Cooper was already beginning to lightly snore.

Gordon raised his eyebrows. This was the easiest he’d seen Cooper go to sleep in his months of turmoil. Perhaps this was helping him after all.

He reached down to cover Dale with the blanket before heading into the kitchen.


	2. Chapter 2

“DO YOU NEED MORE?” Gordon asked a few years later.

He and Cooper were on the banks of a flowing stream. When they’d set out that day, they’d made sure to go deep enough into the woods of Twin Peaks that nobody else would be around. Perhaps it was unwise, but they’d needed privacy. In the city a person could make whatever noises they wanted in their own home or hotel room and remain unquestioned, undiscovered. In a town like Twin Peaks, people watched and listened. 

“Yes,” Cooper replied from where he lay across Gordon’s lap. His voice sounded tight in his throat. “More. Please. Thank you, Gordon.”

“CAN DO, COOP.” _Whap. Whap. Whap._ “YOU’RE SURE STRESS RELIEF IS ALL YOU NEED THIS FOR?”

Cooper paused too long before responding, “Yes.”

“VERY WELL, THEN.” _Whap, whap, whap._

“Oh.” 

Gordon felt Dale’s body tense against his thighs. On the ground, his hands tightened around a clump of grass. Then he was still again, well-behaved as always.

“YOU’RE SURE THERE’S NOTHING YOU’RE FEELING GUILTY ABOUT THESE DAYS?”

Another pause. “No.”

_Whap. WHAP._

Coop let out a gasp that was almost, but not quite, a sob.

“Gordon,” he said after catching his breath, “either your hands have gotten harder or I’ve gotten softer.”

Gordon stopped the spanking long enough to rub the back of Cooper’s denim pants, that article of clothing Albert so harshly condemned.

“TOO HARD FOR YOU? IF YOU WANT ME TO LESSEN UP, YOU’LL HAVE TO LET ME KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON IN THAT BUSY LITTLE BRAIN OF YOURS.”

“I—”

 _Whap._ “OUT WITH IT.”

“Okay,” Cooper said. “With all that’s been going on, with Windom Earle on the loose, it’s difficult to not begin thinking about Caroline again, to get trapped in old feelings again. I—Do you know Audrey Horne?”

“LITTLE GIRL WITH THE FRECKLE DOWN AT THE GREAT NORTHERN? DENISE SAYS SHE HAS QUITE A FIXATION WITH YOU.”

“That’s the one. With how many people seem so utterly confused by me, I’ve often wondered, in the time since I’ve met Audrey, how she sees through me so precisely. She told me once that she could tell there was some great pain in my past, a great pain that shut me down and made me afraid, afraid to become too emotionally involved with certain individuals, afraid to lose them. I’d thought I was over Caroline. Now, thinking about all the women of Twin Peaks who could be hurt if I wait too long to capture Earle, I know I’m still walking around with that pain deep inside me, that I have been for awhile.”

“I THOUGHT AS MUCH,” Gordon said. “NOW GET UP!”

He gave Cooper a couple more pats on the back of his jeans, then put his hand under the agent’s stomach and helped him sit up. The feel of Gordon’s lap against newly tender skin made Cooper wince, but he dutifully stayed in place.

“COOP,” Gordon said, poking him in the chest, “YOU ARE A BETTER AGENT, STRONGER AND MORE SURE OF YOURSELF NOW THAN YOU HAVE BEEN IN ALL YOUR TIME AT THE BUREAU. YOU ARE GOING TO GET THROUGH THESE NEXT FEW DAYS AND BE BETTER FOR IT, AND SO WILL THE WONDERFUL PEOPLE OF THIS TOWN. I’M SURE OF IT.”

He patted Cooper on the shoulder, but Cooper didn’t look reassured. Instead, he glanced at the running water near their feet, and said something Gordon couldn’t quite make out. It was always frustrating, that.

“WELL, IN THAT CASE, LET’S GET GOING,” Gordon said, standing and taking Cooper’s hand. “THE SUN’S STARTING TO SET. WE SHOULD SEE IF YOUR SHERIFF’S COME UP WITH ANY MORE LEADS ON THIS EARLE BUSINESS.”

“Good idea,” Cooper said, and followed Gordon to the nearby car. “And, ah, Gordon?”

“YES?”

“Would you mind massaging me a bit when we’re back at the Great Northern? It’s just I’m so out of practice with all this that I’m feeling particularly sore.”

“ANYTHING FOR YOU.”

Gordon moved his hand to Coop’s shoulder as the two men continued their trek to the car.

He noticed Cooper was furrowing his brow like he did when something wasn’t quite right. He wished that he could comfort him better, that he was able to spank that look right out of him, but he knew things wouldn’t be entirely right with Cooper until Windom Earle could hide no longer, until the women of Twin Peaks were no longer in danger. The best Gordon could do was give him some grounding in the meantime.

Behind them, Gordon could swear he heard something rustling in the bushes. It was strange to hear it and stranger still that Cooper didn’t react. When Gordon turned to look behind him, nothing was there.

He shuddered and got in the car.


	3. Chapter 3

The thick air in the motel room smelled like body odor, blood, and hard liquor. The only light came from the empty space left after Deputy Hawk kicked the door open. In that light Gordon Cole could see a TV, static-screened and pushed near the edge of a table, as well as thousands upon thousands of dust particles.

As part of his condition, Gordon found most rooms to be nearly silent, but he could sense the silence in this one was different, otherworldly. Something hung in the air here, something more than the smells and dust. Whatever it was felt like pure evil.

“Is he?” Deputy Brennan asked in that rural Washington accent of his, enunciated well enough that even Gordon could hear him.

Perhaps that was inadvisable, given that the men were trying to take whatever was in here by surprise, but Gordon appreciated the courtesy nonetheless.

The Twin Peaks police force, or three of them anyway, had specifically instructed Gordon not to speak on this trip, but if he had been permitted to speak, he would say no. Coop wasn’t here, but something else certainly was in his stead.

Nearly in unison, the three officers turned to look at Gordon, their eyes wide. Gordon wondered if he’d inadvertently made a sound, or spoken aloud when he’d meant to keep his thoughts in his head. Andy’s mouth started to open, trembling as though he might cry, but Gordon still couldn’t hear a thing.

Then there were hands, clasping tightly around his neck.

There must have been footsteps, which the other men must have reacted to. Gordon’s hearing aids must not have picked them up. They were fickle that way.

“Down goes another one!” a voice shouted in Gordon’s ear.

This his hearing aids picked up well enough. He flinched.

“Let him go!” someone else yelled.

 _Sheriff Truman,_ Gordon thought.

Spots even blacker than the dark room appeared in his field of vision. He thought he felt a pop in his neck. Through the dark spots, he saw the policemen pull out their guns and point them in his assailant’s direction, and by virtue of that, in his direction too. Sheriff Truman’s gun was pointed just past the top of Gordon’s head. If he shot the bullet and the rest of the world stood still, it would hit what Gordon could only assume was Coop’s body square in the eye, but Gordon knew Bob was fast. He’d move his captive to block himself before the bullet ever reached them.

As if reading Gordon’s mind, Bob shouted in a barely recognizable version of Coop’s voice, “If you shoot now, you know for sure he will die. Leave and he might live. I could still let him go, if missing a few pieces.” 

With that, he threw back his head and let out a laugh that sounded like a roar.

Gordon saw Harry either mouth or say no.

“Sheriff Truman?” Gordon wheezed with all the voice he could muster, hoping to God it was audible, “Sheriff Truman, will you do me a favor and do what this fine gentleman says?”

He saw Harry start to protest, but he insisted, “Sheriff Truman, I’ve seen Coop in some pretty bad states before. I was there after Caroline—”

The grip tightened around his neck, and his gasp came out as a horrible whistle. He saw Harry’s eyes darting around, the panic taking root there. 

“I’m telling you,” Gordon insisted, “if Coop is still in there anywhere, I will find him and bring him back, safe and sound.”

He didn’t know if that was true, but he had to believe it.

Coop, or rather Coop’s body, kicked Gordon in the back of the knee. Gordon yelped, but tried to remain cool in his resolve, breaking eye contact with Harry only long enough to wince in pain.

With one last, reluctant look, Harry told his deputies to clear out. After Andy and Hawk were outside, Harry turned to look at Gordon one more time, obviously avoiding looking at the shell that once housed his dear friend.

“Try to bring him back,” he called, and Gordon thought he heard his voice break.

Then Harry was gone.

After the door closed, the grip around Gordon’s neck grew tighter and tighter, and his field of vision continued to narrow. Silence was replaced by a ringing in his ears, so loud he was afraid he’d vomit. His knees, the one that had been kicked still smarting, buckled out from underneath him. It was as if he was being hanged with Bob’s—Cooper’s—hands as the noose.

He was sure it was all over, but then, at the last minute, it wasn’t. 

At the edge of what Gordon could still see, a blonde girl appeared, encircled by a bright light, the source of which he couldn’t pinpoint. In the crook of the girl’s arm was the throat of a figure, clad in a suit. It looked like a man, his body limp and dragged with relative ease each time the girl took a step. 

She’d been looking away from Gordon before, but now she turned her head and stared at him. Her eyes were almost impossibly blue, her smile calm. Strangely, it made Gordon feel calm too.

“ _Find. Him. Again_ ,” she said in a strange, garbled voice before retreating back into the shadows.

“I could rip your eyes out,” hissed the twisted version of Coop, who didn’t seem to have noticed the brief interruption. “Make you blind and deaf. How will you do your job then, when you can barely do it now? You won’t be able to save this one, you know.”

Gordon felt anger rise, searing, in his chest. “COOP?”

“Is he in here? Is he in here?!?” the creature yelled before starting to jab at Gordon’s eyes with the fingers on his left hand.

At least now Gordon could breathe a bit better.

“ _Find. Him_ ,” he thought he heard the girl whisper from the corner of the room.

Heard her whisper? That shouldn’t be.

Bob dragged Gordon backwards, and as he did, Gordon’s foot scraped across some sort of electrical cord, likely belonging to the lamp on the nightstand.

Gordon’s body jolted, not a jolt of fear but a jolt like something had leaped into him, electrifying him and filling him with a strength he’d never known before. It crackled from his fingers to his toes.

He thought of Coop, whimpering as he lay over his lap only days ago, and how that beautiful soul was being taken away from him. His chest burned again.

“COOP,” he barked, “COME BACK HERE NOW.”

The creature chuckled behind him. Moving with what felt like barely any force at all, Gordon pulled Coop’s right hand from his neck, pinned it behind his back, and shoved him over by the bed.

It was a long shot, but this had always brought Agent Cooper back to his senses before. If anything could work, it was this.

It wasn’t as easy with this thing as it was with the old Coop. Where Cooper had always been willing and penitent as he was placed over Gordon’s knee, Bob kicked and screamed, baring his teeth in something resembling a grimace and a smile. Somewhere in the tussle, his hands broke free, and he threw a few punches at random. Some of them landed, others didn’t.

Coop’s body wasn’t quite in its usual tip-top shape after whatever it had consumed the past few days, after the sleepless nights, the confrontations in bars and alleyways. Still, he was strong, and each time he hit Gordon, it hurt.

But Gordon won in the end, trapping Coop’s legs between his own, and using one of his hands to pin both of Coop’s behind his back once more.

“You love doing this to him, don’t you?” Bob growled. “You’re as sick as me, you can’t deny that.”

“WHAT I DO, I DO TO HELP. NOW, QUIET,” Gordon said. “YOU I DON’T WANT TO HEAR FROM, AND COOP, IF YOU’RE IN THERE, YOU BETTER COME OUT AND FACE THE MUSIC SOON, BECAUSE THE LONGER YOU TAKE TO COME BACK, THE MORE IT’S GONNA HURT YOU.”

Bob continued to pull with all his might. 

Gordon rained down one, two, three, four hard slaps as Cooper’s body continued to twist every which way but out of his grasp.

“YOU COMING OUT YET?” Gordon asked.

 _Whap. Whap. Whap. Whap._ Four more slaps, but no answer from Agent Cooper. Bob screeched.

Grumbling at his lack of results, Gordon reached for Cooper’s waistband. He thought back to a stormy night that felt so long ago, when Cooper told him what to do when he was feeling his worst, and only then.

Gordon didn’t want to do it, not like this, but he was desperate enough to get Agent Cooper back that he was willing to pull out all the stops. 

“THIS IS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, COOP,” he said.

With that, he yanked Cooper’s pants down, not bothering to reach around for the buttons. Those popped off from his newfound strength anyway, bouncing off the floor as they fell.

Prior to this moment, Gordon hadn’t been hitting Cooper’s body any harder than usual, but now, with Cooper’s pants and underwear at his knees, he started to whale on Cooper with all the strength in his rejuvenated body. For once, his hand didn’t even hurt.

The slaps and screams continued. Gordon was grateful the rest of the motel had been cleared out as a safety precaution before he, Harry, Andy, and Hawk had arrived. He just hoped for the sake of Cooper’s dignity that Harry and his deputies were somewhere out of earshot, instead of waiting just outside the door.

_WHAP. WHAP. WHAP. WHAP. WHAP._

A few minutes passed, and then Cooper’s body went limp, letting out a breath that sounded like a death rattle.

 _Oh, no,_ Gordon thought.

Then, there were two winds, one coming in from behind him and one going out from in front of him, where Cooper’s body lay.

Gordon heard a whisper he couldn’t make out, and he could feel that the girl, who’d been lingering just out of his line of sight, was gone. And so was something else, but something new had taken its place.

“Oh,” muttered Agent Cooper, twitching in Gordon’s lap. “Gordon, I was just in a room, a red room. He—Bob, I think—left. He looked like me. Laura—Laura was there. She brought me—and then I could hear you, but I couldn’t reach you. It was as if I was screaming at you from the other end of a tunnel. I saw him too, still in my body. He was robbing people, and he—was anyone hurt?”

Gordon was sure that wasn’t quite the order of how things had happened, but he wouldn’t press it.

“NONE FATALLY,” he answered. “NONE, EVEN, WITH INJURIES THAT WILL LAST MUCH LONGER THAN A BRIEF HOSPITAL STAY. NOW COOP, I HATE TO SAY IT WHEN YOU’VE JUST COME BACK, BUT YOU’RE WORSE FOR WEAR RIGHT NOW THAN JUST ABOUT ANYONE ELSE I KNOW.”

For the first time, Cooper seemed to realize the position he was in, and he looked back at Gordon. His face grew as red as his backside, which was redder than Gordon had ever seen it.

“You’re sure I didn’t do anything irreparable?” Cooper asked, his lower lip starting to tremble.

“WASN’T YOU ANYWAY, AND NO,” Gordon reassured him. “NOW COOP, YOU JUST HANG TIGHT WHILE I HAVE A LOOK-SEE AT SOMETHING, WILL YOU?”

He was almost positive this was really Cooper, but he just had to make sure.

_Whap. Whap. Whap._

Three more slaps came down on Cooper’s bare skin. Gordon brought his force back to that of a normal spanking, the frenzy from before having vanished with the girl. Cooper whimpered for the first slap, groaned for the second, and started to softly sob on the third. Each time, he offered no resistance other than tensing slightly with each impact.

Cooper had never cried during a spanking, not fully, but somehow this new sound only convinced Gordon further that he had the right man.

“YOU COME HERE NOW,” he said, flipping Coop over and cradling him in his arms, careful to keep his body suspended in the air. Coop was shaking and still crying, and Gordon didn’t want anything to press on his most injured part. “HOW DO YOU FEEL?”

Cooper recoiled. Whether from the volume or the pain Gordon wasn’t sure. His heart dropped to his feet.

“It hurts, Gordon,” Cooper answered. “Not just my body. My soul is travel-weary. My body isn’t in the finest shape either.”

“I’M SO SORRY, COOP.”

Cooper winced again. Then his eyes closed and his head lolled to the side, resting against Gordon’s rapidly beating heart. It wasn’t long before Gordon nodded off too, his body exhausted from what had transpired.


	4. Chapter 4

Gordon spent the next two days sitting by Cooper’s hospital bed, watching him sleep. He wasn’t in a coma, Doc Hayward had said. He was just exhausted. Every now and then, his eyelids would twitch, but for the most part he was still as a statue.

Sometimes others would stop by, but Gordon was the hospital room’s only constant, aside from Cooper himself. There had been an around-the-clock supervising nurse for a bit. Gordon had shooed her away the first day, insisting he could babysit as well as her and that she should take it easy, just drop in to check Cooper’s vitals every now and then. She obeyed, but said Gordon would have call her as soon as Cooper woke up.

When Cooper’s eyes popped open on that second day of stillness, Gordon quickly forgot that promise.

“LOOK WHO’S ALIVE!” he exclaimed.

Cooper winced, and tried to reach for his ears. When he noticed the restraints holding his wrists to the sides of the bed, he frowned.

“THOSE ARE A PRECAUTIONARY MEASURE, COOP, NOTHING MORE THAN THAT,” Gordon tried to reassure him.

“I see. Was anybody hurt while I was away?”

“NONE SO MANGLED THAT YOU SHOULD THINK TOO MUCH ABOUT IT IN YOUR CONDITION,” Gordon said.

“And, ah, Annie?”

“STILL MISSING IN ACTION, BUT THAT SHERIFF OF YOURS IS AS HOPEFUL AS I’VE EVER SEEN.”

“If Harry’s decided to be hopeful, then I will too. I feel numb, Gordon. I imagine I’m on a large quantity of painkillers. How much will it hurt when they wear off?”

“YOU’LL HAVE TO ASK THE MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS ABOUT THAT ONE. ALL I CAN TELL YOU IS YOU HAVE SOME SPLIT KNUCKLES, A SLICE SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR FOREHEAD, A FEW BRUISED RIBS, WHAT APPEARS TO BE ROAD RASH—” Gordon paused before continuing, “AND WHILE YOU DON’T HAVE A BRUISED TAILBONE, YOU DO HAVE A GOOD AMOUNT OF BRUISING ON THE SKIN NEAR YOUR TAILBONE. I’M REAL SORRY ABOUT THAT LAST ONE, COOP. YOU’VE BEEN RUNNING A FEVER SINCE YOU GOT HERE TOO, BUT IT’S BEEN DROPPING SLOW AND STEADY.”

“How long have I been here,” Cooper asked, “and how long was I gone?”

“TWO DAYS HERE, FIVE DAYS GONE.”

“And how long do you imagine they’ll keep me in these?” Cooper gently tugged at his restraints. “Until they’re sure I won’t—”

For the first time, he seemed to take in Gordon’s full appearance. Gordon looked away, knowing he looked a little worse for wear himself, with the bruises around his eyes and what were clearly handprints on his neck.

“Gordon—” Cooper said, his eyes beginning to water.

“NONE OF THAT NOW,” Gordon broke in. “THE MAN WHO DID THIS TO ME WASN’T YOU, AND I WON’T HAVE YOU ACTING LIKE IT WAS. I MEAN IT, COOP. IF EITHER ONE OF US SHOULD APOLOGIZE—”

“None of that now,” Cooper smiled. “You saved me, Gordon, and you’re right. What you encountered in that motel room wasn’t me. If it had been me that you’d… hit that hard, it would be a different story, but it wasn’t. Just stay here when the painkillers wear off, will you? I’m sure it won’t be pretty, but I know I’m in good hands with you.”

Gordon was surprised to find tears brimming his own eyes. He leaned down and kissed the top of Cooper’s head.

“ANYTHING FOR YOU, COOP.”


End file.
